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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Francis (Ulrich Tukur) is a cat whose owner (the cats in the film refer to
humans as “can openers”) Gustav (Manfred
Steffen) has just moved to a new neighborhood.Discovering a dead cat in his backyard,
Francis joins up with local curmudgeon Blaubart (Mario Adorf) to unveil the killer and expose the truth behind it
all.

Martin Schaack’s Felidae
is an animated film (in case the fact that its main characters are felines
didn’t tip you off, though I guess this could also have been something along
the lines of Look Who’s Talking Now) based
on a series of novels by Akif Pirincci (I
surmise this film is adapted from the first book), and without giving too much
away, I’m rather surprised it hasn’t been seen by more people or been talked
about more than it has.This film could
easily stand shoulder to shoulder with the dynamic duo of mature-themed
cartoons, Watership Down and The Plague Dogs (or frankly any others
you would care to name).If you’re a parent, I’m not sure this is
something you should show the kids just yet, however (though I’m positive there
are folks who threw it on for the kids assuming all cartoons are kiddie fare,
and besides, if you’re reading this, I’m going to also assume you’re the sort
who knows a bit about what you and your family watch before you watch it).There is graphic violence, including
beheadings and disembowelings.There are
cats having sex.There are (perhaps the
most disturbing element) scenes of live cats being brutally experimented on by
Professor Preterius (the name a clear [and fitting] callback to The Bride of Frankenstein and portrayed here
by Gerhard Garbers).So, if these are things you’re uncomfortable
watching, you will want to pick something else for family movie night (or your
own personal viewing, for that matter).

Nevertheless, the adult
components of the film are essential to the story, and I think had the choice
been made to not depict these things in this manner, it would have done a
disservice to the film’s themes.Naturally, when you pair felines up with murder, the first thought in
most people’s heads is “curiosity killed the cat,” and that certainly holds
true in Felidae.Francis is an innately inquisitive character,
and he knows a thing or two about what makes cats (and people) tick.This is summed up nicely in the opening
moments when Francis comments that Gustav is a student of archaeology who makes
his money writing trashy novels and moves frequently when the creative well
runs dry.But Francis knows this is
little more than an excuse Gustav gives rather than dealing with his problems
head on.Francis also detects odors coming
from upstairs that immediately set him on edge, but we also know there is no
way he will resist the temptation to explore further, as with the killings.This self-awareness is depicted and
foreshadowed in Francis’ dreams.In the
first one, Francis is attracted to a door filled with pure white light (read:
truth).But inside the door, he
encounters a faceless doctor (guess who?) who gifts him with a diamond-studded
collar that transforms into a choking shackle and set of chains that drag him
down to Hell.

More alarming (yet equally in
line with the above, and you can thank me later for not using the term “shocking”),
is our introduction to the cult of Claudandus (a fabled cat martyr/god; the
name being Latin for “he who must be concealed, locked away”), whom we are
introduced to during one of their meetings.The flock, lead by Joker (Ulrich
Wildgruber), fling themselves into an apparatus which violently
electrocutes them.Whether they are
killed or just stunned by this action, I’m not fully sure, because killing
one’s congregation is not a great way to keep it, but the cats who go through
this masochism are not shown moving (or breathing) afterward.We know that when a religious leader is shown
spewing fire and brimstone in a film, he/she is typically either crazy, false,
or both.The cats that are in the cult
are curious about Claudandus, about religion, and this will get them knowingly
hurt and very likely unknowingly killed.The religious facet ties into the entirety of the film, not simply as a
group of misguided cats being manipulated by forces higher up, but as the
embodiment of the power of ideology/theology itself.

Sexuality ties in strongly with
both of these elements, too.The whole
idea of being in heat, of rutting with whoever is available and in proximity,
is important to the film’s plot.The
cats being killed have not been neutered.On the one hand, this plays into the idea of curiosity, since these cats
cannot help but screw when the first opportunity arises with other cats about
which they know nothing.The very fact
they do this places them in danger (for a couple of reasons).On the other hand, there is the notion of the
religious right’s classic condemnation of unchecked sexuality.Taking out of the equation the idea of what
constitutes cat morality (we already know cats have an idea of Hell from
Francis’ nightmares) or fidelity, the violation of this theological edict
conceivably damns a given cat’s soul.In
Felidae, casual sex can lead to
physical and spiritual destruction.

Even if none of my
quasi/pseudo-intellectualizing draws you to this movie (and there are other
things going on which may; I just don’t want to give away the store, as it
were), the film is structured and told in a visually interesting fashion.Most shots not involving closeups on cats are
framed with Dutch angles.It’s fairly
rare to see perpendicular or parallel lines in much of the film’s compositions,
and much of the scenery appears twisted in some aspect of another.Bright lights are also a rarity, lending the
movie some verisimilitude and reinforcing its dark underpinnings.There are also a lot of bird’s eye view
perspective shots (an indication of a deity observing and judging the
characters as well as a reference to the characteristic of felines to sit up
high on furniture/appurtenances looking down on the world around them).Further, the film has the distinct flavor of
a hardboiled detective novel.A
character is presented with a crime and feels compelled to discover the
criminals.Secondary characters appear
to both menace the main character and throw him off the trail (most notably the
marvelously designed Kong [Wolfgang Hess],
who reminded me of the feline version of Chuck
Jones’ Marc Antony character).Others
provide clues, the doling out of which places them in immediate danger.The protagonist alone can follow the
convolutions of what’s going on, the only one beside the antagonist who can put
the pieces together in the proper order.And ultimately, this protagonist is the only one who can confront the
antagonist with the truth, though the answers will likely bring a bittersweet
resolution.Slightly lighter in tone
than the aforementioned anthropomorphized animations, Felidae still packs one hell of a satisfying wallop.

MVT:The basis for the
narrative is intriguing and chilling, and I feel that it strengthens even after
the main mystery is solved.In other
words, it’s not a one-trick pony, and it will reward on future viewings.

Make or Break:When the
Claudandus cult makes its eyebrow-raising entrance, you instantly know there is
much more going on in this film than might be expected.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

The first computer I ever bought
was actually a word processor.This
would have been back around 1996, and I had just moved down around the
Philadelphia area with dreams of becoming a screenwriter dancing in my head
(never mind that any sane person would have moved to Los Angeles to accomplish
this goal).The gizmo was manufactured
by Brother, and because I couldn’t afford a brand-spanking-new one, I had to
buy one refurbished.It served me quite
well, although for those who have never had to format a document such as a
screenplay while you write and edit it (even with using saved templates), you
really cannot appreciate the level of effort that went into getting your words
out (and that’s even before you can find the words you want to get out in the
first place).I still remember the small
monitor, with its type on a background of black, the font like something out of
War Games (but orange).

Which brings me to another
issue.In order to print out what you
had written, you had to load each sheet of paper separately into the machine,
like a manual typewriter, and God help you if you had a page count over a
hundred or so; you’d be there all day.The typewriter/printer came with one font which came in one size.If you needed or wanted something different
(say, size twelve Courier), you had to order a wheel for that specific font and
size which had to be changed out manually.The documents were stored on hard discs which held literally hundreds of kilobytes (yes, that’s
sarcasm) and sometimes had to be split onto two discs if you were verbose
(which I tend to be when writing).And
yet, for all that, there was a tactility involved in the process that made it
feel bigger than simply putting your mind on paper for people to read.You were involved in a project, and when you
reached the end, you couldn’t help having some small amount of pride
(regardless of the work’s actual quality).The word processor was a tool like anything else.You were using technology to a large extent,
but you weren’t a slave to it.It makes
me wonder how far we’ve really come that the dynamic of this relationship has
changed so very much to my mind. And as
much as you may not believe it after watching Sexploitation pantheon member Derek Ford’s final opus, the officially
unreleased (but available via Youtube) The
Urge To Kill (aka Attack Of The
Killer Computer), the film touches on this universal conflict: Man versus
Machine/Technology.

Spectacularly christened music producer
Bono Zorro (Peter Gordeno) brings
aspiring singer Melanie (Sally Ann Balaam)
back to his crib to see if she’s really got what it takes to make it in the biz
(if you know what I mean).Zorro’s pad
(which looks about the size of a college student’s apartment) is ”high tech”
and fully automated, and is controlled by the Central Environment Control
System (which Zorro refers to as “C.E.C.S.y” [pronounced “Sexy”]).But the computer is jealous of the parade of
floozies its master drags through the place and decides it wants him all to
itself.

The basic premise of the film is
nothing we haven’t seen before, and as previously stated, it uses an age-old
narrative drive: the humans want to survive, and the machine wants to kill them.But instead of being something large in scope
like the Terminator films or Colossus: The Forbin Project, this movie
keeps it personal, like Demon Seed or
Electric Dreams.Even then, there’s nothing all that fresh
about this film.We’ve seen sentient
machines that fall in love with their owner/maker.What The
Urge to Kill does that’s interesting is how it personifies C.E.C.S.y.She (and we’ll just settle on that gender
pronoun, since physically the computer is played by a naked woman) appears in
flash cuts, staring in direct address to the camera, but her makeup looks like
Patty Smyth’s from The Warrior video
or Brenda Hutchinson in Liquid Sky (a film I haven’t seen, but
the makeup is distinctive).This
personification is implied as being purely visual (like a hallucination or a
mental projection), a way to have characters react to another character, even
though one of them likely isn’t actually there corporeally.Outside of governing every function in the
house, C.E.C.S.y does manifest physically via a form of telekinesis.But more than this, she can manipulate the
minds of humans, and this is really the crux of the film’s theme.In a conversation earlier on, Zorro tells
chippy Jane (Sarah Hope Walker) that
C.E.C.S.y is “just a machine,” to which Jane retorts, “Aren’t we all?”Later, Jane talks about a person’s mind being
reprogrammed like a computer’s.Nevertheless, for as envious as C.E.C.S.y is, for how much she desires Zorro,
there is a physical barrier that is incapable of being surmounted.This is reflected in the film’s
violence.There’s no symbiosis achieved
between technology and flesh.When the
two meet, to paraphrase Lionel Stander’s
introduction to the Hart To Hart
television series, it’s murder.

Like so many films with tiny
budgets, Ford and company are fully
aware of the two things that sell the most: sex and violence, and there’s
plenty of both to be had here.Every
woman (even the computer) gets naked at some point or another.As they get picked off, their ends (no pun
intended) are met fairly gruesomely.Flesh melts off bones, hands are boiled off, an electric toothbrush
burns into a character’s head, et cetera.Make no mistake, this film knows what it wants to accomplish, and it’s
all about bodies.The camera leers at
its female characters.In the first
scene, Melanie dances around Zorro’s studio, while the camera peers straight up
her skirt and shirt.The idea of gazing
continues in Zorro’s apartment.The various
cameras are given significant closeups as they follow the characters
around.There is the aforementioned embodiment
of C.E.C.S.y looking straight at the camera.In the control room, there is a monitor which is frequently cut to as she
keeps tabs on the human characters.Zorro keeps videos of himself banging various women (most strikingly
what appear to be two grannies), and he likes to have prostitutes perform in
front of him before joining in, which culminates in two “specialists” from a
service called Cat Calls who play a VHS videotape of women mud wrestling while
the duo engage in a catfight and tear off each other’s clothes in front of the
television.Everything is looking at
everything else in this film, and we, of course, are the ultimate watchers as
always, because there’s no one watching us as we watch them (or are
there?).

With all of this in mind, The Urge to Kill is also a film of
incredible sloppiness.Characters enter
and exit scenes on a whim.None of these
people seem to have lives or exist in even the thinnest semblance of reality
(even if Zorro is a rich, indulgent womanizer).I’ll give you a few examples.After Jane pulls Zorro from the hot tub along with a hooker’s forearms,
he refuses to believe that C.E.C.S.y is killing anyone.The clear reaction to this is why doesn’t she
just show him the bloody appendages?A
character claims she needs to use the bathroom, but instead strips down and
hits the sauna.Zorro hires two hookers (not
the two from Cat Calls, incidentally) and (in a baffling instance of paying for
the whole seat but only using the edge) simply takes one to have a bubble bath
while the other strolls all over his home.After they finally realize that C.E.C.S.y isn’t letting them out of the
house any time soon, Zorro very casually wants to have a drink and maybe a
little sex with Jane (as you do when your house becomes a lethal prison).And that’s the thing.Everything about this film is casual to the
point of indifference.On the one hand, this
attitude makes the whole dumb affair go down easier.On the other, it makes the experience a bit
of a slog, since there’s no drive to the story and very little tension to keep
you interested.Thank Christ for boobs
and blood, huh?

MVT:It’s crass as all get
out, but if it weren’t for the women and their copious, gratuitous nudity, I
doubt I could have actually made it all the way through this movie.

Make or Break:The first two
kills are juicy (and naked), and the one is even kind of inventive in a
pleasantly unpleasant sort of way.

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The Gentlemen's Guide to Midnite Cinema is a podcast discussing all films genre related; we cover everything from horror to Wuxia, samurai films to art house films, women in prison films to blaxploitation, direct to video 80's action films to spaghetti westerns, Kung-Fu to Polizia films and everything in between.. Join Big Willy and The Samurai as they bring class to the trash...